Video Cameras

Someday all movies will be on the Internet and, if current trends persist, will last only 10 minutes. Budding auteurs can prepare for this future with the JVC Everio GZ-MS100. The GZ-MS100 records video to an SD card (not included) and has a special upload button that cuts off the video at the 10-minute mark to conform to YouTube's rules, and then automatically uploads it to YouTube when the camera is connected to a PC. It has a 35x optical zoom lens and a 2.7-inch screen with a touch-sensitive scroll pad on the side for selecting options and scrolling through video.

Don't get me wrong. I want to find a cure for Lou Gehrig's Disease and I am happy the Ice Bucket Challenge has given that goal such a tremendous lift. But, how many more dunking videos can one take? It gives new meaning to water torture. I've lost count of how many celebrities have stood in front of video cameras to affirm their willingness to help stamp out ALS. I've got no problem with public testimonies. Well, truth be told, maybe a little. One of my colleagues called me out while I was on vacation.

Coral Springs soon will install weatherproof video cameras to help safeguard North Community Park. The city will spend $86,099 to purchase and install 24 Bosch Flexidome XT surveillance cameras. The infrared cameras will be mounted on poles and can film during the day and night. The park is at 10598 Westview Drive. "We're trying to set the example of making you as safe as we possibly can while you're on city property," said Capt. Jim Eveker, the midnight shift commander of the Coral Springs' Police Department's Patrol Division, who has experience working with the cameras.

A camera keeps a watchful eye on John Gambino's Plantation property from atop a 12-foot pole. The camera is not his; it's his neighbor's, fueling a dispute over privacy and property rights that plays out time and again across South Florida. There's little police and cities can do: Your neighbors can take video of your property as long as they don't set out to violate your privacy. A Florida voyeurism law says your right to privacy extends to any part of your home where you undress and feel comfortable someone isn't recording, such as your bathroom or bedroom.

Local law enforcement agencies are ready to buy more gadgets, upgrade computers and put more officers on the streets with extra money the federal government recently granted to municipalities. The federal government granted $37 million to the state and individual cities, most of which went to police departments. The money, from the Justice Department's Local Law Enforcement Block Grant Program, is distributed based on the violent crime rate of cities. States and communities must match the grants with at least 10 cents for every federal dollar.

Motorists west of Boca Raton will get a little help avoiding traffic tie-ups in the next couple of months. Video cameras will be installed at five major intersections as part of a countywide traffic monitoring system. In the next few years, 128 cameras will hover over county streets and Interstate 95 overpasses. Florida's Turnpike will have them, as well. The idea behind these cameras has nothing to do with Big Brother, but everything to do with traffic management, officials said. "With the congestion we're having, we can't just keep widening the roadways," said Mike Washburn, manager of the turnpike's traffic management center in Orlando.

The images flicker across TV screens with a kind of ghostly quality: Rodney King being pummeled and kicked by a gang of Los Angeles cops; a car plunging over a collapsed section of the San Francisco Bay Bridge; a gun turret exploding and sailors dying on the U.S.S. Iowa. All were captured by home video cameras, hand-held, a little jerky, brightened only by the available light. And all were the result of being in exactly the right place at the right time. It takes that kind of luck to get your home video on the air in South Florida, TV news directors say. The Broward, Palm Beach and Dade markets are compact, the TV stations aggressive.

Students riding the bus to Boca Raton Middle School could be on candid camera -- and the drivers are smiling. Because video cameras could be focusing on them, students did not scream, fight, get out of their seats, hang out the windows or throw paper on Monday morning`s trip to school. "Everybody on the bus was acting like little angels today," said sixth- grader Stacy Jackson, 12. She rides one of the school`s 15 buses equipped with boxes that contain video cameras. The school installed the boxes to deter misbehavior and to possibly prove cases when students need to be disciplined.

The next time vandals scrawl graffiti or rip out plants and tree lights on the Riverwalk, their handiwork may be captured on film. Though they won't become instant movie stars, they can count on a few minutes of fame when the Police Department passes around their pictures and tries to track them down. Police Chief Michael Brasfield has come up with an innovative way to step up security along the Riverwalk, a brick walkway on the New River, without using police officers. He wants to install hidden video cameras to catch vandals in the act and deter hooliganism.

The church was perfect; the flowers were lovely. Man and woman stood at the altar, seconds away from pledging their eternal love and fidelity. Gary Astridge had two video cameras, one at the front of the church and one in the back, recording the scene. But something was going on. He could see the bride`s nostrils flaring. She seemed to be saying something under her breath. Astridge keyed up the wireless microphone on the groom`s lapel. Then he listened in on what his cameras were capturing, this unforgettable moment in the lives of two young people.

Body cams may be the next high-tech tool for officers on patrol in Hallandale. Commissioners have given initial approval to a yearlong pilot program that would arm the department's road officers with video cameras small enough to clip onto their uniforms. The cameras are expected to cut down on complaints against cops and help improve relations with the public, Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy told commissioners Monday. "We're not looking to be punitive," Flournoy said. "We want to improve our officers and our police department.

They took the televisions but left their video images behind. Now, investigators with the Broward Sheriff's Office are searching for a group of burglars caught on surveillance videos breaking into two Pompano Beach businesses in the same week and getting away with flat-screen televisions each time. The first incident happened about 8:45 p.m. Nov. 25, when two masked men are seen on video smashing the front glass door of the Excel Barber Shop at 1941 N. Dixie Highway in Pompano Beach.

The eyes of the world (or at least much of the nation) will be on the U.S. Supreme Court the next two days as it hears oral arguments on gay marriage equality, but don't bother looking for any video of the proceedings. The U.S. Supreme Court still doesn't allow cameras into its chambers, so we'll have to settle for same-day tape-delay audio. The audio is expected to be posted by 1 p.m. Tuesday, and 2 p.m. Wednesday on the Supreme Court's website. In a way, there's irony in the Supremes' supreme camera-shyness.

If you can't trust the folks who install your home security system, just who can you trust? Shawn Michael Garza, 38, is facing Grand Theft and 13 other charges after allegedly swiping more than $100,000 worth of jewelry and other items, according to a news release from the Marion County Sheriff's Office. Garza was charged on Tuesday after detectives discovered he had stolen jewelry and other items from an Ocala home. Garza 'fessed up to the crime and told detectives that "two weeks prior to the burglary he stole the jewelry while doing some work for the homeowners," the release stated.

The killings of a retired Canadian couple in their Hallandale Beach townhome shocked their affluent waterfront neighborhood, generated headlines in the Toronto newspapers and produced a mystery about the crime's method and motive. Hallandale Beach Police released few details Friday about the deaths of David Pichosky, 71, and Rochelle Wise, 66, who were found dead the previous night in their unit at the Venetian Park Apartments in the 900 block of Northeast 25th Avenue. Police would not reveal the manner of death or suggest any possible reasons for the killings.

— From police headquarters, official eyes can be on 151 different public locations at once and an effort has begun to expand that vision into the private corners of the city. Police say they have started approaching businesses about wiring their security camera systems into the city's so that those private camera views can be seen in real-time, not just after a crime has been committed. But the capability could raise some issues about an individual's right to privacy. It's already proven useful, however.

Broward Sheriff's detectives are looking for a gunman who robbed an AutoZone store in Oakland Park. It happened around 6:45 p.m. on Aug. 18 on the 3500 block of N. Andrews Avenue. The suspect forced two employees to give him cash from the registers at gunpoint. Surveillance cameras recorded the robbery. It showed the gunman wearing a greenish fishing hat and a red, long-sleeved, button-down shirt. At first, the suspect paid cash for an item at the counter then pulled out a small handgun and demanded money.

Note to crooks: Most convenience stores have working video cameras. Note to cops: Ditto. When Broward Sheriff's deputies David Wimberley and Brian Swadkins arrested Troy Baldeo at a 7-Eleven in Tamarac in 2010, Wimberley turned in two reports that described the suspect using words like "boisterous," "yelling" and "clenched fists. " But a video of their confrontation bore so little resemblance to that description that prosecutors dropped the case against Baldeo and decided instead to file charges against Wimberley and Swadkins.